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FSG tips

Most organisations fail to make full use of the power of Oracle Financial Statement Generator (FSG).  The notes below contain a few high level tips about FSG usage.  We sell a FSG handout, suitable for most organisations, containing tips and tricks to improve your FSGs, or can offer more intensive training.

Remember that FSGs (within the standard application) reports on activity and balances, not individual transactions.  ADI can be used to drill down on balances and to view transaction level detail, including sub-ledgers.

FSG can be defined to pick up all, or any, of the multiple budgets and/or encumbrances that have been entered.

FSG currency reporting is also powerful.  Entered, accounted and translated currencies can all be displayed.

An FSG has two required components:

• a row set
• a column set

Optionally an FSG has:

• a content set
• a row order
• a display set
• various defined, or run time, overides

Required components

The following sites have been designed, and are maintained by BW Associates:

Row sets

• Navigate to Reports Define Rowset
• You can now run a query to bring up your rowset in order to edit it, or enter a new Name, Description and Report Title to start a new rowset
• Press the ‘Define rows’ button.  This will take you to the form for creation of rows.  You can insert new records or amend existing rows
• A row can consist of either an account assignment, or a calculation, it may also be blank
• Rows are defined as ranges of accounts
• Rows, alternatively, may be defined as calculations of other row values.
• Additionally rows may be based on currencies, sets of books, and period

Column sets

• Navigate to Reports Define Columnset
• The ‘Build Column Set’ button gives a screen which displays a visual representation of the columns
• The ‘Define Columns’ screen allows the creation of more advanced columns
• ‘Position’ defines how far from the left margin your columns appear.  The position of the first column defines how much space is available for row descriptions
• Enter an Amount type.  Use the list of values to decide on Actual, Budget or Variance, and year-to-date, quarter-to-date, or period-to-date, or project-to-date
• At report run time a period is entered as a parameter.  ‘Offset’ defines the period for which balances are displayed relative to the run time parameter.
• Columns may additionally be based on segment values, ranges of segment values, currencies, and sets of books  
• Columns can be defined to pick up any of the defined budgets or encumbrances
• Use ‘Exceptions’ to flag values that meet conditions that you define

Optional components

The real power of FSG comes through the optional components:

• Content sets
• Row orders

Standard components

The use of standardised components can greatly simplify design, support and maintenance requirements.  Consideration should be given to naming conventions and user education on how to use them